


To Protect

by weepingwillow



Series: Merlin Memory Month Fics [5]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kinda not!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 18:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingwillow/pseuds/weepingwillow
Summary: All Arthur Pendragon wants is to be a knight.





	To Protect

All Arthur Pendragon wants is to be a knight. He comes up to the knees of most of his father's men, but knighthood is still all he wants. He has a little wooden sword and the stable master takes him out on trips into the woods on his very own pony where he can chase rabbits and deer happily. He gets to watch the knights sometimes, when they spar and when they joust, and he lives for those contests when he gets to stand on his chair so he can see and jump up and down in excitement and cheer for his favourites.

The best thing is when the knights let him clean their armour off, polishing their mail until it sparkles, buffing their shields until he can see his face in the boss. They come back from their patrols and Arthur runs to the courtyard to greet them, knowing that their victory over ruffians and brigands is in part down to him.

Arthur plays at being a knight with his best friend Leon all across the castle. They catch pickpockets in the market and protect uninterested little girls from imagined dragons. They pretend that the court physician, Gaius, is an evil warlock and, when he's not busy, he lets them chase him through the corridors. They search all afternoon to find his hiding places.

That, to Arthur, is as good as life gets. Watching over people, fighting monsters, and knowing that one day he'll grow up to be as strong and as victorious as the people he idolises the most.

When he's older, he loses sight of that, but only for a while. His father, always so distant, steps into his life and it hits Arthur then. He understands who he is, what he is, for the first time in his life. He feels important, but also unstoppable.

Until he almost is.

There's the unicorn, and it's keeper, and it's the first real threat - not to him, but to his people. Arthur thinks of the child that he once was, about how he somehow intrinsically understood that a knight’s value isn't in his glory, but rather in his ability to protect. A knight should be a shield, not a sword. Arthur has forgotten that, and forgotten too that it wasn't only him who took refuge beneath his shield, beneath the shape of a golden dragon on a red field. So it is not only Arthur who pays the price.

Watching his people starve, Arthur vows never to forget again. And as Crown Prince, that is what he does. He is the shield between Uther’s old, harsh ways, and his people. When Uther wants to put the royal family first, it is Arthur who stands up for the people. Quietly, not attacking boldly like Morgana but fighting in the way of the shield wall. A spear here, a shove there. Pushing his father steadily back, helping remind him to be the good man that Arthur knows he is beneath the fear and the sadness.

It's who he is as a King, too. His people come first, they always do. It's them he cares about more than anything else. Keeping them safe. So when the call comes, when he dies and they bring him back, he knows it's alright. He doesn't fear. It's his destiny.

To sleep, and to dream of knights with their shields and their horses. To wait, and then to wake, to protect.


End file.
